Hartselle’s winningest coach to receive Frank “Pig” House Award

Special to the Enquirer 

The Board of Directors of the State of Alabama Sports Hall of Fame is proud to announce that William Booth will be recognized as the 2023 Frank “Pig” House Award recipient at the 55th Annual Induction Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, May 13, 2023.  

 The Frank “Pig” House Award is given to someone who has performed outstanding service to sports in Alabama, and whom the Board of Directors feels worthy of special recognition. The award is named after the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame’s first Chairman of the Board who was instrumental in the founding of the Hall of Fame. 

 Booth was born in 1944 in Hartselle. He became a math teacher at Hartselle High School in 1966. Booth taught math for 22 years before he was convinced by Hartselle’s principal to coach their baseball team. Booth’s son would soon be joining the high school baseball team, so he figured he would try coaching for two seasons. After leading the team to a 27-4 record in his second season, Booth has stuck with the team ever since. With his 648th win in 2006, Booth became the state’s all-time winningest high school baseball coach. At 78 years old, William Booth still leads the Hartselle Tigers baseball team and has compiled a record of 1163-508. Booth has also won nine state championships, good for the second-most in Alabama history, and 21 area championships. Booth was inducted into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.  

 Booth joins a distinguished list of others who have been honored by the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame as Frank “Pig” House Award recipients. They include Sammy Dunn (2004), Avalee Willoughby (2007), Buddy Anderson (2014), Emanuel “Tubb” Bell IV (2017), Don Hawkins (2020), Reeves Sims (2021) and Eddie Conyers (2022). 

The 55th Induction Banquet and Ceremony will be held in the Birmingham Ballroom, at the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel, on Saturday, May 13, 2023. For more information or to purchase tickets, please contact the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame Museum at (205) 323-6665.